Various different shelving systems have heretofore been made utilizing a plurality of vertically spaced shelves and a plurality of spindles disposed between the shelves for supporting the shelves in vertically spaced relation. In order to increase the overall length of the shelving system, some shelving systems such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,636,893; 3,783,801 and 3,831,533 arrange two or more shelves in end-to-end relation with a common set of spindles between endwise adjacent shelves to support the same. However, while such shelving systems enable similar spindles to be utilized at the ends of the shelf assembly as well as at intermediate locations, these shelving systems generally require a number of different shelf styles depending on whether the shelf was an end shelf in a series of endwise related shelves, or an intermediate shelf in a series of endwise related shelves, or an independent shelf not disposed in endwise relation with an adjacent shelf. This not only increased the number of different shelf styles that had to be manufactured and stocked, but also required the purchaser to pre-plan the overall shelf assembly before purchasing, in order to determine how many of each of the different types of shelves had to be purchased. Moreover, this made it difficult if not impossible to rearrange the overall shelf assembly at a later date, without requiring the purchase of some additional shelves of a different style.
It has also been proposed to make shelf assemblies of the type shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,881,428 in which flanged shelves are provided with cut-away corners, and standards extend along side the shelves in the cut-away corners and are fastened to the shelves by a diagonal bracket on the inner side of the shelf flanges and a fastener that extends horizontally from the bracket into the standard to draw the standard laterally against the cut-away corner of the shelf and shelf flanges. In such shelving systems, the standards do not underlie the shelves to support the same and the shelf load is imposed substantially entirely on the horizontal fastener. Moreover, one type of leg or standard is required for the corner shelves in such systems and a different standard or leg is required for supporting the adjacent ends of a multiple shelf assembly.